Sense8 (a play on the word sensate ) is an American science fiction drama web television series created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski for Netflix. The production companies behind Sense8 include the Wachowskis' Anarchos Productions (replaced by Lana and her wife's Venus Castina Productions in the second season), Straczynski's Studio JMS, and Georgeville Television, with Unpronounceable Productions having been set up specifically for this show.
The show's first season introduced a multinational ensemble cast, with Aml Ameen, Doona Bae, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, and Brian J. Smith portraying eight strangers from different parts of the world who suddenly become "sensates"; human beings who are mentally and emotionally linked. Freema Agyeman, Terrence Mann, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, and Daryl Hannah also star. In the second season Toby Onwumere replaces Ameen. The show aims to explore subjects that its creators feel have not been emphasized in many science fiction shows to date, such as politics, identity, sexuality, gender, and religion.
All episodes of the first season of Sense8 were written by the Wachowskis and Straczynski; in the second season, Lilly Wachowski took a break from the show, and the episodes were written by just Lana Wachowski and Straczynski, with the exception of the series finale which was written by Lana, David Mitchell, and Aleksandar Hemon. Most of the episodes of the two seasons were directed by the Wachowskis (or just Lana, in the second season), with the remainder being divided between their frequent collaborators James McTeigue, Tom Tykwer, and Dan Glass. Lilly's break during the second season marked the first time in the sisters' career that they did not work together as a writing and directing unit. Sense8 was filmed almost entirely on location in a multitude of cities around the world.
Conception
According to the Wachowskis, the origins of Sense8 date back several years before the announcement of the show to "a late-night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us". J. Michael Straczynski recalls that when the Wachowskis decided to create their first series, because of Straczynski's extensive experience working with the format, Lana chose to invite him to her house in San Francisco to brainstorm ideas together. Both the Wachowskis and Straczynski agreed that if they were to do a television series, they wanted to attempt something that "nobody had done before", and change the "vocabulary for television production" the same way The Matrix became a major influence for action movies. After several days of discussion they decided on creating a show that would explore the relationship between empathy and evolution in the human race, and whose story would be told in a global scale, necessitating filming on location in several countries over the world, in contrast to the standard production model for television which attempts to limit or fake that as much as possible. A source of inspiration for Straczynski was his own experience concerning friends of his who live in different parts of the world but coordinate to watch a movie at the same time and comment to each other online about it.
The title of the show was thought up by Lana on their second day of brainstorming, during a time when they hadn't yet decided how many characters they were going to have. Lana appeared to Straczynski with a notebook with the word "Sense8" written in it, as a play on the word sensate and the notion of eight main characters, telling him "The hard part is over now!".
Development The trio became so excited with the concept they came up with, they decided to do initial development on their own instead of pitching it to someone else. The Wachowskis wrote three hour-long spec scripts, and together with Straczynski attempted to shop them around, such as at Warner Bros. and HBO, but when they saw that nobody could understand the concept they decided to shelve it. A few years later, when they felt that the landscape of television had become friendlier towards more experimental concepts, they decided to pitch it a second time. On October 2, 2012, Variety first reported the existence of the show, by writing that the Wachowskis, with the help of Straczynski's Studio JMS and Georgeville Television, would be shopping Sense8 around Los Angeles the week to follow. If the series was picked up, the sisters and Straczynski would be sharing showrunner duties. Additionally, the Wachowskis were planning to direct a few episodes of the show if their schedule permitted it. According to Straczynski, the first meeting with potential buyers was with Netflix. The Wachowskis and Straczynski talked to them about subjects such as gender, identity, secrecy and privacy. According to Lana they pitched shooting on location all over the globe to which Netflix responded favorably, which was in contrast to the "clearly impossible" response they had received by other outlets during their earlier abortive attempt. They also told Netflix they were only interested if they had the freedom to "do anything", like "crazy psychic orgies with all sorts of different bodies" and "live births even" to which Netflix also responded positively. After the end of the meeting, despite it having seemingly gone well, they worried they had made a mistake because they had not pitched any action or otherwise commercial aspects. By noon, and before they had the chance to pitch it to other outlets, such as HBO, Netflix called them to preemptively offer to buy and produce the first season. Netflix announced that they had ordered a 10-episode first season for the series on March 27, 2013. Later, during filming, because of the density of the scripts and the extended length of the first cut of the first episode, the showrunners and Netflix came to an agreement to extend the season to 12 episodes. The Wachowskis and Straczynski's production company that was set up to run the show was named Unpronounceable Productions. The name was suggested by Straczynski, as a joke that references the difficulty of pronouncing the showrunners' long last names.
Before filming began, Straczynski and the Wachowskis mapped out five seasons worth of stories for the series, including the series' final episode, similarly to what Straczynski had previously done on his Babylon 5 series. The actors cast were signed for five seasons. "We pitched it as a five-year story. We've mapped out five seasons of this thing, our actor deals are being made for five seasons, five or six depending on the breaks", said Straczynski. The first season acts as the origin story for the characters. When asked how long their story bible is, Straczynski replied "It's in our heads". However, Straczynski did compile a 30-page document detailing the key points of a hypothetical second season should the first season become a success.
Comic book artist Steve Skroce, who has been collaborating with the Wachowskis since The Matrix on both film and comic book media, created storyboards for the show. Julie Wachowski, sister to the Wachowskis, is given the credit of "story researcher" in the closing credits of each episode of the first season. Karin Winslow Wachowski, Lana's wife, is credited for researching the story starting with the second episode of the second season.
Lilly Wachowski, after completing her gender transition, decided to take some time off and did not return as writer or director for the second season, although she remained active as co-creator. Straczynski, who had a very active role during season 1 from pre-production to post-production in order to assist the Wachowskis with their first foray into TV, said his primary involvement in season 2 finished with the completion of the writing phase, as Lana felt this time she had the required experience to tackle the filmmaking aspect of the show on her own. He also said that the second season was designed to explore the mythology of sensates, introduce other clusters, and provide answers to many of the questions viewers had after the first season. Lana came up with the idea of making the first episode of the second season a two-hour Christmas special, because of her love for such programming in the television shows that she watched as a kid, such as Hill Street Blues, Mork & Mindy, and All My Children. Lana explained she enjoyed watching the lives of the characters in specials intersect with her own and considered birthdays, holidays and celebrations unique events for their ability to make one feel connected but also isolated and alone.
Producer Roberto Malerba has disclosed that the first season had an average budget of about $15 million per episode, and the second season $9 million per episode.
Writing Initial writing for the first season was split between the Wachowskis and Straczynski. The Wachowskis wrote episodes one, two, three, seven and eight while Straczynski wrote episodes four, five, six, nine and ten. Then the Wachowskis rewrote Straczynski's scripts and vice versa. Straczynski said a good portion of the writing was done by just Lana and himself. Straczynski believes writing with the Wachowskis helped mask each other's weaknesses and also allowed each party to learn from the other. He recognizes action and plot as their biggest strengths but structure as their weakness. On the other hand, he views himself as really good on structure but weak on action. Straczynski said the way he works is by first developing the entire script in his head, from the first sentence to the last, before sitting down to write it, while the Wachowskis begin by writing the scenes they have already developed, leaving the others they haven't figured out yet for later, while they constantly move the pieces around to see in which way they work best.
Earlier versions of the story featured a sensate from Iraq and more about Whispers, the villain of the show. The show was transformed when the writers decided to limit the storytelling, with the exception of the opening scene of the first episode, to the perspective of the eight characters. This means that every scene set in San Francisco must be about Nomi, in Chicago about Will and so on. Since the show begins with the characters not knowing what is happening to them and without being able to cut e.g. to the villains like a traditional show, the audience starts with the same questions and confusion as the characters do. As the characters slowly begin to understand more about what's happening to them over the course of several episodes, the audience does as well, at the same pace. Straczynski notes this type of writing wouldn't work if they were writing for a traditional network. "The first episode is written in a way that you could never do a pilot. With pilots you have to set up all the rules and explain everything to hook people in," said Straczynski. Instead, taking advantage of the binge-watching model Netflix promotes, the series was written as a continuous 12-hour movie, making it possible to tell the story at a different pace.